DUBAI // Only five of the 54 institutions that applied last year to open in Dubai International Academic City (Diac) were accepted, say officials.
The successful organisations included a leading business school and an American university.
Diac says it applies “stringent criteria” regarding an institution’s ability to meet the demands of students and of industries looking for graduates with particular skills. Also, officials consider whether any potential new institution will add to what is already available in the free zone.
Other factors taken into account include the quality of the academic and administrative staff and the institution’s financial status.
Among the organisations whose applications were approved were Hult International Business School, which is ranked among the top 40 institutions of its kind by the Economist Intelligence Unit. According to Diac, it will become the first American business school to establish a full-time, fully accredited MBA programme in the region.
Also opening is a branch of Michigan State University, which begins courses this month, and Murdoch University International Study Centre Dubai, a branch of Murdoch University, in Western Australia.
The other institutions that applied successfully were the Postgraduate Management Institute from Sri Lanka and the University of Phoenix, which runs online higher- education programmes.
Diac, which opened last year, recently formed an academic committee to review applications and has finalised the criteria the committee will apply.
Dr Ayoub Kazim, Diac’s executive director, said: “We look forward to attracting top-tier universities with the capability to respond to our markets.”
While it aims to attract the top- level institutions, Dr Kazim said Diac was not restricting itself to such prestigious higher-education providers, and that the academic city should offer something for students of every ability, including vocational courses.
“We want to create that multi-tier education. I have shared this view with some academics in the [United] States and they have agreed.”
Including the 37 or 38 institutions likely to be based at Diac, Dubai emirate should have about 60 to 65 universities by 2015.
Currently, about 35 per cent of the 10,000 students at Diac and Knowledge Village have come to the UAE from abroad to study.
Knowledge Village was created in 2003 as a centre for higher education institutions, but Diac is now taking over that role, leaving the village to specialise in personnel and training organisations.
Over the next several years universities at Knowledge Village are likely to move to Diac, where they will be joined by a string of new branch campuses of foreign universities.
As Diac grows, Dr Kazim expects that proportion to grow to 60 per cent, with Dubai becoming a higher-education “destination”.
“We want to cater to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa.”
Dr Kazim, who has published about 50 papers and articles on subjects such as alternative energy and fuel cells, is keen to see more research and development at Diac.
“Over the past five years, we’ve been focused on teaching-intensive universities. We’re trying to shift away from that and move to R and D. The development of a nation can be assessed by the amount of funds allocated to R and D.”
Dr Kazim said Arab nations allocated just 0.8 per cent of their gross domestic product to research and development, compared with two to five per cent in western nations.
“We want to attract research universities to take part in the education in this country,” he said.
As many as 20 per cent of the students at Diac are expected to be postgraduates, some of whom would be working towards PhDs.
There are now more than 25 international universities at Diac and Dubai Knowledge Village, both of which are operated by Tecom Investments. The institutions come from countries including Belgium, Iran, the UK, the US, Australia, France, Pakistan, India and Russia.
Universities in Diac are under the jurisdiction of the University Quality Assurance International Board. This panel was recently set up by Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority to ensure that institutions opening branches maintain the same standards here as on their home campus.
Daniel Bardsley